Around five million people in the country – almost 45 percent of the population – now face acute levels of food insecurity, according to the charity Save the Children, due to the difficult situation caused by poor governance in Haiti. But, according to the Irish Times Journal, Digicel “has not observed any significant impact on the company’s activities” despite the crisis there.
Digicel Group, the telecommunications group founded by businessman Denis O’Brien, said it had so far seen “no significant impact” from Haiti’s recent descent into state d ’emergency.
Haiti descended into anarchy this month as gangs took control of large parts of the capital, Port-au-Prince, and the country’s interim Prime Minister, Ariel Henry, was unable to returning from a trip abroad.
Gang leaders like Jimmy Cherizier, a former police officer, say Mr. Henry has worsened poverty in a country where annual per capita domestic product before the latest crisis was less than $2,260 (2,090 euros), according to the International Monetary Fund.
While Mr. Henry agreed on March 12 to resign following the appointment of a council that would set up a transitional government, that process has stalled due to bickering between the different parties and concerns over security. members of the council.
“Our concern, first and foremost, is for the safety of our wonderful staff in Haiti; and secondly, of course, keeping our customers connected. We are closely monitoring the situation and have activated our crisis management procedures, with our teams on the ground doing an incredible job to maintain critical services for our customers,” said a spokesperson for Digicel, one of the two main telecommunications providers from the Caribbean country.
“We have not seen any significant impact on our operations at this stage but we continue to monitor the situation. »
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Digicel’s acting chief executive, Maarten Boute, said on March 3, at the start of the latest crisis, that Digicel’s international connectivity to Haiti had been temporarily affected due to a double fiber cut resulting from violent clashes in a suburb of Port-au-Prince.
Since Digicel launched Haiti in 2006, the country has lurched from one natural disaster to another – including devastating earthquakes in 2010 and 2021 – and periodic civil unrest. Since then, the country has been plunged into permanent chaos – President Jovenel Moise was assassinated in July 2021.
Problems in Haiti, Digicel’s largest market in terms of mobile subscribers and one of its main traditional revenue streams, were a key factor in the group’s decision to seek a major debt restructuring last year.
The deal, reached in January, saw Mr O’Brien hand over 90 per cent of the company to a group of bondholders in exchange for a $1.7 billion debt write-down. It has the possibility of increasing its stake by up to 20 percent, if the guarantees attached as an incentive to the restructuring end up being triggered.
Documents released by Digicel in connection with the restructuring last August highlight that Mr Henry’s decision to remove fuel subsidies almost a year earlier – triggering a rapid rise in inflation – had seriously hit profit before interest, taxes and depreciation (ebitda) of the company.
“Thus, towards the end of 2022, in light of the crisis in Haiti and its material effects on the Group’s Ebitda, it became evident that a more comprehensive restructuring of the Group’s capital structure was necessary,” can we read.
Digicel warned in the documents that it expected “further significant negative impacts on our operations and financial performance due to the instability in Haiti.”
The Haitian gourde has lost about half its value against the US dollar, the currency in which Digicel reports its financial results and its debt is denominated, since late 2020. Yet the gourde has remained relatively stable throughout the last crisis.
Around five million people in the country – almost 45 percent of the population – now face acute levels of food insecurity, according to the charity Save the Children.
Digicel operates in 25 markets in the Caribbean and Central America.
